Caribbean & Central America - January 2023

On 19 December, Holland’s Prime Minister Mark Rutte issued a formal apology to former Dutch colonies in the Caribbean - Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, and Suriname - for his country’s historical association with slavery and the slave trade. The Dutch central bank, ABN Amro bank, and the cities of Rotterdam, Utrecht, and Amsterdam have also all issued apologies in recent years. The latest apology has been welcomed, but it has not stilled the debate about reparations.

A decade ago, the Caribbean Community (Caricom) set up the Caricom Reparations Committee (CRC) to argue for monetary compensation from European countries that profited from the slave trade. The CRC responded to Rutte’s statement by saying that it was disappointed that the prime minister had not first sought “the organised input and support of the Caribbean”.

In a statement issued in response to the apology, the CRC said: “Historic though it is, the statement is flawed on the basis that the prime minister did not seek the organised input and support of the Caribbean. The unilateralism of the apology and acknowledgements must now move to a multilateral basis. The marginalisation of these victim communities will undoubtedly be experienced as an ongoing approach steeped in the imperial culture we are seeking to replace with a deeper democratic sensibility. The Dutch State was Europe's pioneer of the global slavery enterprise.”

A typical response to the apology was that of a Guyanese organisation called the International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana (IDPADA-G). The group’s chairman, Vincent Alexander, said: “We consider this apology a significant step in the acceptance of guilt and the demonstration of penitence for the involvement of the Dutch in the worse crime ever committed against humanity.” However, he also made clear that an apology was not the end of the issue, saying: “We look forward to subsequent initiatives on your government’s part in response to the just and global call for reparations as the ultimate act of recompense.”

The CRC, for its part, has drawn up a 10-point action plan for dealing with the issue of slavery, of which the issuing of a “full and formal apology” is just the first point. The full 10-point list of demands includes:

1) Full and formal apology

2) Indigenous peoples’ development programme

3) Funding for repatriation to Africa

4) The establishment of cultural institutions and the return of cultural heritage

5) Assistance in remedying the public health crisis

6) Education programmes

7) The enhancement of historical and cultural knowledge exchanges

8) Psychological rehabilitation as a result of the transmission of trauma

9) The right to development through the use of technology

10) Debt cancellation and monetary compensation